The present disclosure generally relates to authenticatable articles. More particularly the disclosure relates to authenticatable articles comprising benzoxazole and benzothiazole compounds. These benzoxazole and/or benzothiazole compounds are useful as authentication compounds in the authenticatable articles.
Polymers, such as polycarbonates are widely used as substrates in a variety of data storage media or optical storage media. These media traditionally contain information such as machine-readable codes, audio, video, text, and/or graphics. One major problem confronting the various makers and users of data storage media is the unauthorized reproduction or copying of information by unauthorized manufacturers, sellers and/or users. Such unauthorized reproduction or duplication of data storage media is often referred to as piracy. Piracy can occur at various instances, such as at the consumer level at the point of end use, or at a commercial level where wholesale duplication of valuable information stored in a data storage medium can take place. Regardless of the manner, piracy of data storage media deprives legitimate content providers, such as software and entertainment content providers, as well as original electronic equipment manufacturers, of significant revenue and profit.
One anti-piracy/authentication method aimed at combating these consumer and commercial level reproduction and copying practices involves the placement of ‘tags’ or authentication markers in substrates used in the construction of data storage media. For example a near-infrared fluorophore can be incorporated into the compact disc via coating, admixing, blending or copolymerization. Fluorescence is detectable when the fluorophore is exposed to electromagnetic radiation having a wavelength ranging from 670 nanometers (nm) to 1100 nm. Other examples include a polymer comprising a tagging material wherein the tagging material comprises an organic fluorophore dye, an inorganic fluorophore, an organometallic fluorophore, a semi-conducting luminescent nanoparticle, or combination thereof, wherein the tagging material has a temperature stability of at least about 350° C. and is present in a sufficient quantity such that the tagging material is detectable via a spectrofluorometer at an excitation wavelength from about 100 nm to about 1100 nm. Some authentication methods rely on one or more intrinsic physical or chemical characteristics of the substrate materials to distinguish unauthorized duplications of information-carrying substrates. Such anti-piracy characteristics may be based on performance characteristics such as (for example in the case of an optical disc) the weight and/or density of the disc; the spin rate of the disc; the acceleration and deceleration of the disc; the inertia of the disc; the spectral characteristics such as reflectance of the disc; the optical characteristics such as light transmittance of the disc; the water absorption and dimensional stability of the disc; the data transfer rate of the disc; and the degree of wobble of the disc, or combinations of such characteristics.
Some other authentication methods include obtaining the chromatic variation of objects in response to external stimuli, the method comprising the incorporation in the desired objects of various pigments having combined effects comprising a luminescent pigment, a thermochromic pigment permitting the change in the color according to the temperature and/or a hygroscopic pigment that will provoke a variation in the chromatic characteristics according to humidity. Thermochromic polymer-based temperature indicator composition that comprises a polythiophene and a carrier medium are also known to be used as authentication methods. The composition is characterized in that the polythiophene is present in the medium in an amount of about 0.05 percent to about 5.0 percent by weight based on the weight of the composition. The structure of the compound is designed such that when the composition is placed in a heat exchange relationship with an article, the composition will exhibit a color change when a design temperature or a temperature beyond the design temperature is reached in the article.
Numerous anti-piracy/authentication methods have been developed and continue to be developed. Manufacturers and users of data storage media continue to seek authenticatable articles that are currently unknown and/or unavailable to unauthorized manufacturers, sellers and/or users of data storage media or data storage media substrates. Further, there is a need for authenticatable articles that will be difficult for unauthorized vendors and producers to obtain, reproduce, use and/or find.